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Friday, October 28, 2011

I ordered my first Nails Inc polishes from Sephora's F&F sale (still ongoing! Here's the link to get your own 20% off code if you haven't gotten it already!) last week and received my package on Monday. Nails Inc is a new brand to Sephora. I've previously seen them when visiting the UK, but they have a pretty high price point over there; about 11 GBP I think! They retail for $9.50 USD, which is a lot more affordable, and with the 20% off sale, it was enough to push me to try out this new brand.

I only purchased cremes, but they do have some magnetic polishes and flakie topcoats available at Sephora. I am only willing to jump on the magnetic bandwagon if it comes with a star magnet (and is blue :p) and I'm already flakied out from my Nfu Ohs. But, in case you were excited about those type of polishes, please check 'em out and let me know how you like them!

I'll show you the swatches and comparisons of the shades I purchased before giving you my thoughts. Shown are 2 coats.

Comparison: Nails Inc Porchester Square and Petites Vintage Gray Both two coats... not exact dupes, but really, really close, and both not great on me ;) Vintage Gray is dupey to Milani Bare to Wear (which takes 3 coats to be opaque).

Nails Inc Haymarket - 2 coats, dried fast but not glossy (not matte either). The polish definitely needed a good shake though, as I had some white streaks when applying my first coat.

Comparison: Nails Inc Haymarket and Orly Gumdrop - Gumdrop has a great 2 coat formula as well, but is a little thinner. They are close in terms of opaqueness.

Comparison: Nails Inc Haymarket and OPI Mermaid's Tears - Similar, but definitely not dupes. I think I prefer the OPI.

Comparison: Nails Inc Haymarket and Essie Turquoise & Caicos - The Essie has an almost jelly-like appearance on the nail (very juicy looking), while the Nails Inc is definitely a solid, opaque creme.

Comparison: Nails Inc Haymarket and Essie Greenport - same as above, the Essie is "juicier".

Comparison: Nails Inc St John's Wood and Revlon Modern Grace - They look closer than they are; the Nails Inc is a shade darker, I think

Comparison: Nails Inc St John's Wood and Zoya Malia - The Nails Inc and Revlon were showing a bit bluer than in real life, so I wanted a pic of the NI compared to a much warmer purple like Zoya Malia.

Nails Inc Warwick Way - guh this photographed sooo wrong. It's way more vibrant. It reminds me of AA Malibu Green, but I don't have that.

Comparison: Nails Inc Warwick Way and Illamasqua Muse - this photo makes them look really close, but it's a total LIE. Muse is more dusty and blue, while Warwick Way is almost neon and very green-toned.

Nails Inc Foubert's Place - supposedly a green-ish taupe or dark khaki, it pulled rather plain ol' brown on me.

Comparison: Nails Inc Foubert's Place and Revlon Stormy - I purged a lot of my taupes a few months ago, so these comparisons are probably kind of useless :p This Revlon is in the same family as $OPI Metro Chic, Rimmel Steel Grey, Confetti Moonstruck, ChG Below Deck / ChG Channelesque, etc.

Comparison: Nails Inc Foubert's Place and ChG Ingrid - This reminds me how much I need to re-wear Ingrid. can't believe it was this time last year I was spazzing over China Glaze's Vintage Vixen collection! :)

Comparison: Nails Inc Foubert's Place and NARS Bad Influence - I picked up this NARS from the F&F sale as well. It was on sale for $8 (!!!) and it's very milk-chocolatey looking. Nice formula too.

So, my thoughts?

The Good:

Nice formula. Easy 2 coaters and these polishes seemed to dry faster than anything I was comparing them too; although, some did not dry especially shiny (Haymarket dried almost matte).

Some vibrant, original shades. Of course, some are a little dupey, but most of them I was very surprised by how different they were in real life to swatches I had seen online.

The Bad:

The sticker sealing the cap to the bottle leaves a gross residue. The barcode sticker also leaves a residue. This can be cleaned, but still very annoying.

Smaller than average size; 10mL or 0.33oz for $9.50+tax is a bit pricey.

The quality control on the brushes is ridiculous. See my picture below. I ordered 8 bottles, including top and base coat, and 5 of them had abnormal brushes. Not impressed at all.

Like I mentioned, I also purchased the "Caviar" base and top coats to test out. They retail for $10 USD. I haven't given either a full test-run yet, but here are my first impressions on the topcoat:

The topcoat dries very fast and very shiny, but the texture is very different from what I'm used to (SV or Poshe). The Nails Inc topcoat is quite thin, and while shiny, it doesn't give the "glass-like" quality I've come to love from my other topcoats. Also, since it's a thin formula, I have been applying either too thick a coat (resulting in tiny, irritating bubbles) or too thin a coat (resulting in brushmarks from the rather rough brush bristles!!).

I will continue to test out these two products though, since I know a lot of other bloggers have fallen in love with them.

Overall, I like the Nails Incs I purchased but probably will not purchase anymore unless there's a colour that really catches my eye. I am definitely going to keep St John's Wood, Belgrave Place, and Warwick Way. I may return the other three as they are just too similar to polishes I already own. Do you think I'm picking the right "winners"?

Did any of you guys haul from Sephora's F&F sale? What did you buy?! :D

Monday, October 24, 2011

Taking a break from my Korean polishes to show you the Essie winter 2011 collection: Cocktail Bling! I couldn't wait any longer to use my Aveyou groupon from the summer, and spent it even though I have been waiting for LuxEffects to go up on Aveyou.com! Oh well, it was worth it :)

I love this collection. The colours are great, as is the formula (2 coats shown). Surprisingly, I did not have close dupes for most of these, so the comparisons might not be too useful to you, but I thought I should show them anyways to help you get an idea of the colours.

Essie School of Hard Rocks - I was dying for this colour. I think it's awesome. For someone who has a lot of teals, I was really surprised to find I didn't have anything as greyed out as this shade...

Comparison: Essie School of Hard Rocks and Misa Dirty Sexy Money - I decided to compare it to one of my fav dusty teals. Totally different.

Comparison: Essie School of Hard Rocks, Orly Sapphire Silk, and CND Urban Oasis - This was requested by a reader. I don't have OPI STWD anymore XD

Essie Bangle Jangle - Nice greyed out purple.

Comparison: Essie Bangle Jangle and OPI Done Out In Deco - I had been wondering what this polish would look like against one of my favourite light purples, DOID. Turns out, the OPI is a tad warmer. I'm not sure which one I like better, though.

Comparison: Essie Cocktail Bling and Zoya Caitlin - The closest shade I have to Cocktail Bling was Zoya Caitlin from earlier this year. As you can see, though, the Zoya is much much darker (although very awesome in its own right). Love both.

Essie Size Matters - I'm always on the hunt for a good red to go with my skintone, and I think this one is great. Very blue-toned red, it almost seems raspberry on me.

Comparison: Essie Size Matters and Essie Limited Addiction - I find photographing reds to be a challenge. Actually, these are not as close as they appear. Limited Addiciton is quite a bit warmer and Size Matters is definitely blue compared to it. Both have a lovely formula though!

Essie Bobbing for Baubles - Beautiful dark blue polish. I thought it might be close to American Apparel Passport Blue, but I gave that away a while ago, so I couldn't do a comparison.

Comparison: Essie Bobbing for Baubles and Misa Office Polish-tics - the closest thing I still own was this Misa (which I adore). The Essie is really dark, but doesn't look black.

Essie Brooch the Subject - The only one I was waffling on was this nude. I don't think I like it that much on my skin tone, to be honest.

Comparison: Essie Brooch the Subject and Essie Jazz - I compared it to one of my favourite nudes, Essie Jazz. BtS is quite a bit yellower than Jazz.

Comparison: Essie Brooch the Subject and Orly Country Club Khaki - Compared to my other favourite nude, Orly CCK, BtS is also quite yellow compared to the Orly!

So, there you have it. I highly recommend this collection. It might be boring if you're not a creme-lover, but if you are... woo baby! If you guys have any suggestions for additional comparisons, let me know! I'll try to do the comparisons if I own the polishes :)

Friday, October 21, 2011

Yayyy, I'm finally done a big project at work! Of course, I thought I was done two nights ago, but it turns out I made a tiny mistake, that had a big impact (oops!), so I had to re-do everything last night and this morning. But now... now it's done (I hope.)

So here's another Nfu Oh post. I bought 50 and 54 on my trip, and had bought 40 from Fabuloustreet.com last year (when I was obsessed with SH Hidden Treasure).

Nfu Oh 54 layered over black - the flakies in this are actually a bit sparse in this one

Nfu Oh 50 over Zoya Pinta - flakies are wayyy more dense in this one. Almost SH HT dense.

Comparison: Nfu Oh 40, 50, 54 - that's kinda annoying, right? Anyway, I'm just going to keep 40, since I've already put a dent in it and it's in the most clear base.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Nfu Oh 56 over Illamasqua Rampage - I think this is fantastic! Like 51 and 52, this polish has small shimmer in addition to the flakies. I think it really adds a lot of depth.

I have a bunch of other Nfu Oh flakies to show you, but they all ended up looking really similar on the nail. I need to work up a few comparisons to make that post more helpful, so I may post something else before that goes up... maybe a haul post ;)

Hope you guys are doing well! This week is really dragging for me. I can't wait for the weekend!!! Even though I have nothing planned, I need to time to rest >

Saturday, October 15, 2011

I've always seen photos of this polish (often compared to Clarins 230 with flakies) but never thought I would have it. I picked it up in Seoul last month and here are the swatches. I tried it out on its own, but didn't like how it looked, so I layered it 1 coat over Zoya Pinta. You can get Nfu Ohs from fabuloustreet.com for $12.50 each (free US shipping over $25).

Nfu Oh 51 (over Zoya Pinta) - Actually, this didn't wow me as much as I thought it would. Maybe I just need to find a better layering combination.

Comparison: Orly Fowl Play and Nfu Oh 51 over Zoya Pinta - I think I prefer the Orly!

A while back, I tried to franken my own Nfu Oh 51, and this is what I had come up with:

Next to my franken: the recipe for the franken is about half and half Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Pizzazz and Colorama Flakies plus a little red.

Comparison: Franken and Nfu Oh 51 over Zoya Pinta - As similar as they look in the bottle, they're much different on the nail. The Nfu Oh is way more packed with flakie-goodness.

Sorry I was MIA all week! I was away for a work conference just outside of LA. This is the view from my hotel room... such a gorgeous view!! The weather was amazing. Flying back into EWR was a real downer... lol.